Black and grey blackwork tattoo of an ornate teacup and saucer decorated with roses, placed on the upper back near the shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Teacup and saucer with roses on upper back

Blackwork · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of a teacup on a saucer, with the cup and saucer decorated with roses, leaves and scalloped edging. The linework is bold and outlined, with solid black areas used for the flower centres and shading. The tattoo fills the centre of the frame against plain skin, with a little dark hair visible at the top edge.

Blackwork Botanical Back Teacup Saucer Rose Floral Leaves

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have been polishing the same cup since the kettle boiled at half past six, and Mrs Pargeter at the counter of the Copper Kettle has started watching you the way she watches the weather. It is the good cup, the one with roses climbing its side in black ink on white, the gold long since worn off the rim. Your father painted that pattern by hand in the years before the war, and the saucer now has a hairline crack you have been pretending not to see.

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Tuesday brings the commercial traveller from Bolton, who orders a pot for one and then asks for a second cup, as if someone might still come through the door. You pour, and his hand shakes so the lid rattles against the pot. He says the scalloped edge of the saucer reminds him of his mother's, the one that went to the rag man in '47. You say nothing, because the scallops are the part you know best. You traced every one with a fine brush at fourteen, perched on an upturned crate while your father breathed over your shoulder.

On Thursday you carry the cup and saucer to the back room, where the pot of resin and the spirit lamp are waiting. You mend it slowly, with the patience of someone who has learnt that some things can be held together without ever being whole again. The crack runs straight through the middle rose, so you lay the petals back over it, one leaf at a time, until the join sinks under the shadows and disappears.

On Friday Mrs Pargeter picks the cup up, turns it towards the window and says nothing for so long that you are certain you have failed. Then she sets it down, slides a shilling across the wood and says, Pour it for the traveller, love. He'll want the one with the roses.